11 Mar 2019: Who is our judge?

In so far as you did this to one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did it to me.

God does not judge anyone. It is the ‘least of his brethren’ who become our judges. What we do to them, or do not do to them, turns out to be the measure of our judgment.

Imagine that you are in the court, and in the judge’s seat there is a poor, uneducated slave! One of ‘these little ones’!

“Who are you?” you might ask.

He could answer: “I am the Son of Man!”

It is interesting to note that “the least of his brethren” are not aware of having done good works. Hence it is not that they are going to judge us actively. But their mere presence makes a judgement on our behaviour and our value system. We will be forced to judge ourselves in their light, to determine, whether we belong to the Kingdom or not. When we see them we will either feel happy or condemned, according to what we have done to them.

Let us be careful then. When we go out the next time into the street and see one of the “least of these”, the scum of the society, we cannot afford to take him or her lightly. He/she could determine our salvation or our condemnation! The Gospel today is as serious as that in its warning!